Rise Above…. My Personal Journey Through Life pt.1

Rise Above…. My Personal Journey Through Life pt.1

Chase your dreams and never give up, if you really want something bad enough it will happen. Don’t allow anyone to talk you out of what is in your heart. Its not their decision to make. God gave us all several talents, maybe not to be the best in the world or number one, but enough to achieve true happiness in what you do. I often wonder what life would be like if I had followed my dreams that I had as a child. My love of baseball was one I began, I’d play with friends in an empty lot, or play catch all summer long. Even when no one else was around I’d throw a ball straight up in the air just to catch and repeat, played organized ball and had a blast. One thing I never cared about was whether we won or lost as it was the game, the at bat or just standing at my position hoping the ball would be hit my way. After all there was tomorrow, another game another chance to win or lose. To me it was the fun, the hat, uniform, the glove, bat and ball. Sadly for myself I didn’t follow this dream for many reasons, some my own and some the actions of others. Coach Sanders at UT and the Minnesota Twins gave me my last chances but by then I had given up on myself and the game I loved. One dream I gave up the chase.
I was lucky as a child as I could try anything and do it well, I was athletic and also I was born with what is known as a photographic memory. My problem was that I used this memory selectively, and wasn’t driven to see the importance of education in the traditional sense. Both parents worked and my sister being older, we were never close. I was left to my own imagination, when small I’d spend hours playing by myself with toy soldiers or cowboys and Indians. The epic battles I’d create took hours sometimes days to complete. And truthfully I loved every minute of it, I was alone but that never bothered me those toy soldiers and cowboys and Indians were all the companionship I needed.

As I think back upon my life I realize now that I was very much a loner, not by choice, just circumstance, as I lived between my grandparents home and the one with Mom and Dad. My father had a couple of bookcases full of books, I’d sneak and grab one and take it to my room, this was before I knew even how to read. There were National Geographics that I used to just look at the pictures of many interesting places, people and things. There was also books about World War II, and American history. I saw the words and yet couldn’t read at the time but I knew one day I would. This of course is when I began to develop my love of books that I still have today.
It was when I became a teenager that I began to dream of becoming a writer, the TV show the Walton’s gave me the ability to dream about doing this. I made a mistake and announced it to those who I thought would support this idea. My family quickly frowned on this idea, my sister just had to mention that the great writers were known to suffer from alcohol or drug addictions. And in truth I hated school especially Language, English or literary courses. So dream number two went down in flames without fanfare or much thought to just do it despite of what others said. After all I still had baseball at this point. And I could read and learn what I wanted to know. I was never interested in fiction ironically, considering my imagination was a strong part of me. I wanted to write about history or current events and in my mind fiction shouldn’t be included when telling those stories.
By the time I was 20 both of these dreams had become forgotten and become only a memory that I would keep and hold. I could still read and learn whatever I wanted but life had already begun to spin out of control, my life of addictions had begun. My mind would never be the same again as I had lost all my desires and dreams, (one I haven’t mentioned here, but I’ll write about that at a later time as it seems to becoming true.) So again I tell you all, never stop chasing your dreams like I had it will certainly make you feel like you failed in every sense of the word. After all what is life without dreams?